The war vs carbon in the 3rd world

Planners want to replace the legacy Philippine jeepney vehicle fleet with “environmentally friendly models”. But the drivers are up in arms at the new units, “that operate through electricity or more environment-friendly fuel” at 2.4 to 2.6 million pesos each which are much more expensive than current vehicles costing from 200 to 600 K pesos.

Jeepney phaseout: It’s more than just new vehicles
MANILA, Philippines—The validity of provisional authorities (PAs), which allows individual operators to ply traditional jeepneys, has been extended again but transport group Manibela vowed
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Dialectics 101

DEI is coming to medical schools. “Increasingly, medical schools and schools of public health are enthusiastically embracing the values of DEI and instituting far-reaching policies to demonstrate their commitments to the cause. … That ideology is exemplified by a research methodology called “public health critical race praxis” (PHCRP)—designed, as the name suggests, to apply critical race theory to the field of public health.

Welcome to America’s Racialized Medical Schools
Forget about the oath to do no harm, future doctors are being forced to swear allegiance to racial dogmas
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Hitting the Taiwan Beach

The key thing to keep in mind in any conflict in the Indo-Pacific is that sea denial/access depends as much on ground expeditionary forces covering naval movements as it does on forces afloat. This applies to China as much to the USA. “The RAND corporation has run simulations which suggest that it would take a salvo of around 50 missiles to knock out a dozen amphibious warfare ships attempting to cross the relatively narrow Taiwan Strait. It is estimated that it would take a modest 10,000 to 20,000 pounds of ordinance to decimate an amphibious landing force of around 90 ships in a hostile littoral.”

This means China cannot readily advance without suppressing ground based precision fire threats to its amphibious fleet.

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US, Japan Create Force to Defend Luzon

Japanese defense forces can now deploy to the Philippines. “The new defense agreement allows Japan to deploy its forces for humanitarian missions and disaster response in the Philippines, an arrangement Japan hopes to eventually upgrade to include joint military training, cooperation and mutual visits, Japanese officials said.”

Japan, Philippines agree to sharply boost defense ties
The leaders of Japan and the Philippines have agreed to sharply boost their defense ties, allowing Japanese troops greater access to Philippine territory, as tensions rise in Asia amid China’s growing influence
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Defense of the Philippines

US positions in Isabela and Cagayan imply a planned denial of the Luzon Strait to China in the event of an invasion of Taiwan. The position in Palawan suggests a defense of the Sulu Sea and the Central Visayas Inland Sea against the PLAN. Strongly implied: the Philippine Sea ports will be main supply route once the South China Sea is shut down by conflict.

U.S. to Boost Military Role in the Philippines in Push to Counter China
Washington and Manila announced a plan to give the American military access to four new locations in the Southeast Asian country, a growing strategic partner in the region.
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The singularity, but which?

You are hereby reassigned to the Department of Deadwood. Some think AI can be used to abolish government. China thinks AI can abolish both democracy and capitalism.

Artificial Intelligence And The End Of Government
Building on deep learning tools, AI could mean significantly improving service delivery for citizens and elevating the work of public service professionals while also inspiring a new generation of technocrats to enter government. Alternatively, AI could also mean remaking government altogether.
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Spring offensives

The spring offensives in Ukraine are about to begin, with Putin thought to go for broke to take Kyiv.

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And the temples of his gods

Gerard Vanderleun: December 26, 1945 – January 27, 2023

Gerard Vanderleun: December 26, 1945 – January 27, 2023
Gerard died peacefully in the small hours of the morning. He left instructions to me for two last posts of his that he wanted me to publish here. I will probably do that tomorrow. I also will be posting a few more essays of my own about Gerard, but I will keep his two last

The Deprecation of Routine

You would have thought the bureaucrats would be among those most easily replaced by automation, but since it is the law of nature that govt never shrinks, it turns out that you can displace radiologists with AI but never a clerk.

The lawyers may eventually lose this one. Automata charges by the microsecond, not by the hour. AI can learn all the routine stuff. What both man and machine will value most in the future is new knowledge, aka information, aka surprise. There will be no end of potential material as the known unknowns grow faster with each new known known.

A robot was scheduled to argue in court, then came the jail threats
The man behind a startup called DoNotPay planned to use AI to help fight a traffic ticket. But professional lawyers shut it down.
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